Theorists: Left Hemispherists

The left hemisphere is the hemisphere of abstraction and theory. Iain McGilchrist, The Matter with Things, p. 30.

The right hemisphere is the hemisphere of experience: fresh, unique, embodied . . . being present with things as they are. Id.

The Brownstone Institute was built on the rubble of COVID policy. It's cranking out some great stuff, which includes the cognitive humility that ought to inform every public policy decision. This piece by Jeffrey Tucker, which excoriates the experts who sit back with their theories and direct public policy that the working man must comply with, even though theory conflicts with reality, is a good sample of its work.

Tucker's piece is strongly "hemispheric." The theorists are left-hemisphere mavens. They abstract ideas and formulate theories without regard to the huge body of evidence that no human being can grasp, all the while ignorant that they are invincibly ignorant. And they're so cocksure, they're insufferable and "totalitarianish" in their positions.

That's also a left-hemisphere thing (not exact quotes but close):

The left hemisphere often doesn’t know that it doesn’t know. There are plenty of medical cases (say, in stroke victims with an impaired right hemisphere) in which the left hemisphere not only clearly doesn’t know what it’s talking about but behaves as though it knows perfectly well. “[T]he left hemisphere is more self-directed, enclosed, self-validating—in thrall to its theory.” Matter, 44 The left hemisphere is reluctant to admit its ignorance. Master, 215